Copyright Laws:
Images enhance your website, blog and social media posts. However, you have to be careful where you get your images. I have heard of several website owners who have been sued for using images that they have just “gathered” from other websites.
Most images are protected by copyright laws around the world and permission is required to use the image. It is a common practice to gather images on the internet, but companies like Getty Images are getting very aggressive and have “bots” that search through the web looking for images that they own. They will demand $1000 or more per image that they find being used that has not been paid for. This has to be taken very seriously. The website owner is responsible for the website content, not the website designer.
I purchase images to be used on websites that I create. You should check the images used on your website and make sure you know where they come from. I make it a practice to let website owners know where I got their images from, in case they ever need to prove the images were purchased.
If I created your website and want to know where the images came from, just let me know. If you update your website yourself, make sure you know where you got your images from.
Here are two reasonably priced places to purchase images:
Protect yourself and make sure you are not breaking any copyright laws when adding images to your website.